The Meaning of Life - 100 Minutes of One Minute Stories
Pál Mácsai and Miklós Lukács's István Örkény Evening
István Örkény's One Minute Stories, a collection of short tales, was first published in 1968, more than half a century ago. The idea was minimum communication, maximum imagination.
His writings featured the grotesque spectacle of our shared ideas broken down into tiny pieces, and vice versa: the secret wholeness of life found in everyday banalities.
Today, his invented genre has become a popular concept in Hungary, many of the lines have become well-known proverbs, and the characters and scenes have grown into an integral part of Hungarian language and thought. One unique characteristic of Örkény's One-Minute Stories is that they remain untouched by time - they do not age. Not just because of the attractive format, the original approach, the clear wit and brilliant humour, but first and foremost because - as the writer himself saw - the things that are within us and surround us never alter: man is eternal.
Director: Pál Mácsai
Photo: Judit Horváth
